The Spanking Writers

There’s always this moment of hope, as you rummage around a knick-knack shop of finding something deliciously pervertible. Imagine our delight yesterday as we found this interesting heart-shaped, um, paddle? Carpet beater? Whippy toy?

Unfortunately, it was actually too brittle to use. It would have probably snapped at the first stroke. But I was pleased to have found it nonetheless. I guess, toy-hunting can be a bit like clay pigeon shooting: the thrill of hitting your mark is enough, whether you get to enjoy the spoils.

At the moment our hallway is decorated by what could pass for a large bundle of kindling. It’s quite a large bunch of hazel twigs tied together with string, like a pauper’s bouquet. And we didn’t have to take a single step into the woods to acquire this prize.

How do we come to own a great big pile of switches?

Well, Abel, Emma Jane and I were driving along last week, when suddenly EJ said, “I’m so glad you didn’t notice that sign. That said “Hazel sticks for sale”.”

“What? Where?” Abel and I both exclaimed. He immediately started to look for a place to turn around and drive back.

The sign by the side of the road was very prominent, and indeed promised hazel sticks to anyone who would turn off the road and drive a little distance towards some randomly spaced warehouses.

One of these warehouses was full of hazel. Most of the sticks it offered were more like poles, twice the height of a human, and breaking the rule of thumb three times over. But beneath these monsters were bundles like we now own: some pretty thick sticks, which helpfully sprouted smaller, more manageable twigs.

Abel bounced out of the car and went to buy a bunch. I just overheard him answering the vendor’s question about needing them as a decoration for our house.

Well, now they’re decorating the hallway. And I must think of something to do with them before vanilla visitors arrive tomorrow.

But I’m still stunned at the ease with which one can obtain several birches’ worth of hazel twigs while simply driving through the countryside.

Our good friend Mr Allen has been doing some research. He’s kindly written up his findings on matters of great import, and has generously allowed us to share them here. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present the most fascinating exploration of the history of the Manx Birch:

The final official administration of the Manx Birch was in January 1976. Until this time, judicial corporal punishment in the Isle of Man included a fearsome implement made from 4 or 5 straight but whippy hazel rods of about 6mm in diameter tapering to 4mm at the tips. The rods are bound together at the handle and middle section to form a “Manx Birch”. For maximum efficacy, fresh rods are cut and splayed out at the business end and administered on the bared bottom of offenders with maximum possible force. The bottom feels five stingy individual fingers of the birch not dissimilar to multiple thin dragon canes all landing at once. This burning pain builds throughout the administration and remains hours after the birch has been administered.

Officially, this implement weighed a maximum 9oz and 40″ overall length. Any heavier, it could be easier to take, just bruising the bottom. The thin and whippy implement bites in and assures a well striped and welted bottom. Remarkably it leaves minimal damage to the skin and at most minor surface grazes.

For those interested in enacting this judicial administration, hazel rods can be obtained from commercial woodland supplies where suckers are coppiced from hazel trees. Collected, expect to pay up to 50p for each selected rod. As hazel rods cannot be cleaned, make sure that sufficient are purchased for each play partner.

Assembly is simple. Wind masking tape around the handle and midsection to tightly bind the rods together. If the rods are bunched together at the business end, then the sensation is more of a thud and not too severe. Binding the rods together so that they splay out as fingers at the business end, the rods become incredibly effective. Ideally, fresh rods should be used and soaked a few days before use making them supple and springy. A few moments spent sanding down or removing the small nodules around the business end will also help minimise damage in play, something the offenders were not afforded when this implement was used in an official capacity.

Mr Allen

March 2011

That’s the theory. I should add that the practical followed a couple of weeks ago, in which I had the pleasure of joining Mr Allen as we re-introduced the authentic Manx birch for disciplinary purposes.

The rods are much heavier that the so-called Manx birches I’ve used in the past (made from, of all things, birch – rather than hazel, as I now know to be more historically accurate) – and rather less flexible.

The brave girls on the receiving end were Cate Stoker and Catherine: six strokes from each of us for each of them, followed by an additional dozen for Cate – the initial flogging having broken Cath’s skin a little to the point at which we were concerned to proceed further. It produced a delightful reaction from each of them.

The hard hand tawsings that rounded of the session for each of them, trialling Mr Allen’s latest Lochgelly purchases, were, of course, entirely cruel – and all the more fun for that!

Having now experimented once with this wonderful – if somewhat scary – implement, and having been generously given more to take away for future use, I need to go away and practice my birching technique on a few cushions; I do rather like the idea of a fuller judicial scene, which is scheduled to take place before very long!

Huge thanks to Mr Allen for sharing the fruits of his research – and also, of course, to both of the girls for playing!

It has occurred to me recently that tops tend to have favourite implements, which people associate with them. My dear Abel is famous for his love of canes, which he swings with considerable gusto.

For a while I didn’t realise this, but as a top I’ve also developed a favourite implement, and it worries me somewhat that it tends to be the hairbrush. I seem to feel a particular affinity with brushes, and love to apply them to bottoms squirming over my knee. The reason this worries me is that brushes are quite evil; this is well known. Am I therefore evil?

Be that as it may, I’m not about to reject the brush. I need to reflect upon why it attracts me so much. Perhaps, it’s the feeling of spontaneity: when a punishment is necessary, I grab the first thing my eye falls on, which is my own hairbrush on the nightstand. Maybe it’s that I’m never travelling without a brush, and therefore am never without an implement. There’s also the intimacy of the over-the-knee position, my favourite both as a top and a bottom. Long live the brush, and its evil pleasures.

That said, my caning practice is going very well, thank you for asking.

A few days ago Abel showed weakness in the face of an antique walking stick gorgeously capped with silver. It’s crook-handled and cane-shaped – being, you know, a cane – but it’s also extremely thick and dense, and I wouldn’t say it’s particularly suitable for corporal punishment. Unless you like being beaten with a stick.

And yet, Abel was completely charmed by the thing, and frankly, so was I. Give us anything cane-related, and we just can’t keep our dirty mitts off it.

This stick just goes to prove what a load of rubbish the apocryphal “rule of thumb” is – the one that goes that a man can beat his wife with anything that isn’t thicker than his thumb. The new stick? Is terrifyingly thick. If you were to play with it, you could really no more than gently tap, for the sake of bone safety. As a new top, I’m too wary of even attempting to use it.

And yet, it’s thinner than a thumb. Abel’s, or even mine. So in theory, if the rule were true, it could legitimately be used for the correction of wives. Hmm, I really don’t think so.

I do like the terrible, unusable, dangerous thing, though.

Although in reality spanking with a switch isn’t my favourite thing – because it really hurts, you know? – it has a permanent place in my fantasy landscape. An irate Daddy grasps a sulking teenager firmly by her ear, marches her to the tool drawer and extracts his secateurs.

“Here, young lady,” he says grimly. “Go outside and cut me a switch. You know what will happen if it’s not thick enough.”

And the girl does know: first comes the whipping with a thinner switch, which will be painful despite its inadequacy, and then Daddy will go into the garden to make his own choice, and the switch he chooses will be so much worse.

Begging will do no good, so the girl reluctantly takes the secateurs and goes outside, where she walks up to…

What? Is it an apple tree? A rowan? A willow? A plum? In warmer climates, maybe a peach? I wonder what switches are most effective?

Personally, I’ve been known to be made howl with a switch cut from a weeping willow, though apple trees are also quite deadly. The willow was worse, or maybe the switch was wielded with more force?

If you have a theory on the best tree for a switch spanking, I’d gladly take notes.

I really did want to buy a camel whip when I visited one of the Gulf states recently – having wanted to own one for years, since a rather bizarre episode with a friend’s parents implement collection. My previous trip there had been frustrating – stuck on the edge of town, in a gorgeous hotel but miles from anywhere. But this time? I was bang in the centre of the city. So surely my luck would be in?

Of course, it wasn’t. For as I scanned the streets from my taxis during the trip, not a single shop could be seen with helpful names (“The Whip Bazaar” or “Camels in Trouble”, maybe?). It struck me that I had no idea whatsoever where to look, and I wasn’t exactly going to ask the hotel concierge – “And why do you want one of those, sir? Lots of camels in Oxfordshire, are there?”

More to the point, I suddenly realised that there probably isn’t a huge market for such items. I may picture every street corner with its own camel, ever neighbourhood with weekend camel races, every shopping trip involving a detour to view the latest collection of this season’s new whips. But I’m guessing that your average local resident doesn’t get to see a camel from one year to the next.

How frustrating. I guess I’ll just have to look on eBay… And in any case, I guess the same is true for foreign visitors to the UK. I mean, you can’t just turn up in London and expect to find canes in every store, and if you asked where to buy a school tawse in Edinburgh these days, they’d probably call the police…

A few days ago the postman handed me a parcel: a thin poster tube with something rattling inside. Now, I know what normally comes in poster tubes, but I didn’t remember Abel telling me about buying any implements.

Curiosity burning, I peeled off the tape, prized off the lid, and into my hand slid a peculiar-looking toy. It was a very thin plastic rod with a cord tongue on the end, similar to a dressage whip, though clearly made to use on humans. The thick handle was inscribed with the name: VibraWhip. I also saw a button, which made me realise that this thing a) wanted batteries, b) was pretty weird as far as whips go.

We experimented with it last night. I lay face-down on the bed, and Abel lightly lashed me, first as with a normal plastic whip, then with the buzzing switched on. It’s a pretty pleasant toy, if you like biting sting (and I seemed in the mood for it), though the vibrations add nothing to the impact. Having it drawn over my skin was also vaguely pleasant – more so on the particularly sensitive bits, naturally. Mostly it’s just weird, though.

I could see it being a useful sort of implement in a long sensation-based scene, with the recepient suitably prepared with a variety of other toys – a bit like a pin-wheel, which is not much by itself, but can do a number of exciting things on a caned behind. I can’t see getting much out of the buzzy whip on its own, but I could see it slotting nicely into the rest of our arsenal.

If we figure out the best use for it, I shall report further.

Abel has read somewhere about somebody’s parents putting switches in the freezer before giving a whipping, and how this made the pain particularly awful. Never one to pass up any kinky experimentation, he stuck a few birch twigs in the freezer and crossed his fingers.

Some hours later he invited me to lie face-down on the bed to test the theory of frozen switches. (“Quick, quick! Before they defrost!”) Getting into the spirit of scientific enquiry, I bared my bottom and gritted my teeth.

And what a spectacular failure this experiment has been! Not only were the icicle switches no more painful than usual, I could swear they were more bearable. Normally I find switching very trying, and can hardly ever take more than six or so cuts, but here the sting was quite mild and – dare I confess – pleasant. I encouraged Abel to continue the whipping past the experimental stage, which he did with some force, and although by the end I was quite striped and sore, this wasn’t an ordeal for me, but rather a piquant exercise.

So maybe I’m wrong to call the experiment a failure, after all. I did rather enjoy its results. But the conclusion is the same: putting switches in the freezer doesn’t make them any more fearsome.

And thank goodness for that. Switches are pretty evil without any artificial enhancement.

Matlock Bath, in Derbyshire, is a very strange little place. Developed in the 1800s, it became famous as a spa town after Queen Victoria visited in 1831 – and the town appears to have changed little since, save for the appearance of a quite astounding number of fish and chip shops. The local tourist board would doubtless describe it as ‘evocative of another era’ – the usual shorthand for ‘slightly run-down and very dated’, albeit still a pleasant place in which to pass an hour or two.

We visited a little while back with a group of kinky friends, and popped into the once-grand Hydro – now home to an aquarium and holographic exhibition. As the attraction’s site notes, “Reminders of its former splendor can be seen in the fine stone staircase, the drinking fountain and huge iron girders spanning the thermal pool.” (The slot machines, from which we won the grand total of £2 for a 40p stake, are presumably a more recent addition).

Said fine staircase features a rather lovely cat:

But it’s this type of cat that really caught our eye:

The display helpfully explained the types of knot needed to make the implement (“but don’t try this at home, children”), with a history of its use. I hadn’t known, for example, that floggings aboard ship always took place at the same time – 11am. And have you ever wondered why the tails on some cats are knotted, whilst most are not? It seems that ‘a standard cat o’nine tails had plain rope tails, but if the punishment was for stealing from a fellow shipmate, each tail was knotted at the end and this instrument was known as a “thieves’ cat”‘.

Quite what it’s doing in a glass case on the staircase in an old spa is anyone’s guess – were whippings one of the treatments on offer? Were the maids accompanying their Victorian employers to the resort despatched to the Hydro for punishment if they misbehaved? Or, perhaps, were the current owners simply hoping to attract kinky visitors like our group?